Natures are Overrated

* Let's say your -Spd Tharja fails to clear some GHB whereas you know a neutral-Spd Tharja would allow you to clear it and you can't come up with any way to clear that GHB without the neutral-Spd Tharja. Okay, you are now crying because your Tharja is -Spd.

* A similar scenario could involve your neutral Tharja failing while a +Spd would accomplish it. You are now crying because your Tharja is neutral.

* Or maybe you have a +Spd Tharja and she fails. But a +1 merged +Spd Tharja would work. You are now crying because you don't have a second Tharja to merge. Yes, I know that a +1 merge is only a 2-point difference and I don't even know if it applies to Spd. But regardless, it's always possible to get into a situation where even just 1 point in some stat fails to grant you the clear.

* We can keep going on and on, and then you can cry that your Tharja isn't +10 +Spd.

* Heck, let's not restrict it to Tharja. You might be in a position where a +10 Tharja wouldn't work, but you realize that if you invested in a +10 Linde instead, then you'd clear it. You are now crying because you invested in Tharja instead of Linde.

* See where I'm getting at? Unless you're aiming to be a Top-Tier Arena Whale, there's always a more "optimal" alternative that you don't have. And that optimal alternative might have secured clears that you would fail with the sub-optimal one.

* But if you're not a Top-Tier Arena Whale, then your satisfaction should NOT be based on absolute optimality. If you're crying because you have an unmerged -Spd Tharja, you might as well cry because you don't have a +10 +Spd Tharja. That's a very silly comparison, yes, but it's the same idea down the road and the silliness of the comparison reflects how silly I feel it is to cry about that unmerged -Spd Tharja.

* One might point out that nature difference is much more significant than incremental merge boost. Doesn't matter. As far as optimality is concerned, every point counts. Even if we're not talking about FEH, the only reason why "being more optimal" is significant in any game, or any other context, is because the difference in optimality might be relevant. Well, unless you're a perfectionist who wants max optimality for the sake of it, but that delves into Top-Tier Arena Whale territory so it's irrelevant to this discussion.

* One might point out that nature difference is in a single copy whereas incremental merge boosts necessarily require two or more copies. Doesn't matter. Somebody might spend 200 Orbs for their first Tharja while a friend rolls 20 Orbs for two Tharjas. It doesn't matter that the first scenario is more likely than the other. Sure, if we're doing something like say, analyze Tharja as a unit or compare her with others in a theoretical sense, then yes, it's important to even the playing field for comparisons. But what we are discussing here is the personal satisfaction (or lack) of the Tharja that a player has already rolled. The likeliness of other outcomes that didn't happen is irrelevant to this discussion.

* You spent X Orbs to get the Tharja, hoping for anything but -Spd but had your hopes crushed since she was -Spd? Well, first of all, you could have had your hopes crushed by not getting a Tharja at all. But from a pure gameplay perspective, why would you specifically want "anything but -Spd"? It's because you care about those 3 points of difference, right? Your target wasn't to get any Tharja, it was specifically to get a Tharja of a certain level of performance or better. In other words, out of the many Tharja configurations, including natures and merges, you wanted a Tharja that was at least the Rth most optimal Tharja. It's a very specific target. The (R + 1)-th would make you cry, but you would be fine with the R-th Tharja? Why? It's possible that the (R - 1)-th Tharja might be able to clear a GHB while your R-th Tharja just falls short of it, would you then cry about your R-th rank Tharja? This analogy applies to every value of R except R = 1, so ultimately it's really the player's own self-inflicted perception that decides that anything worse than the R-th rank is unacceptable while rank R and above is fine.

* I believe the reason why players care so much about natures is primarily because acquiring a single copy at a specific nature has the same probability as each of the other natures. So when they roll a Tharja of a bad nature, they get upset, because this Tharja "could have" been of a better nature. This feels even worse when the player's hopes weren't strict, e.g. "anything but -Spd" is a far larger set than "-Spd", so falling into that smaller subset of unacceptable natures feels really bad. Some players go further and cry if their Tharja is not of either +SPD or +ATK. Some players might even go further and cry if their Tharja is not of the single most optimal nature (not sure what this is, maybe +SPD -DEF?). Are any of these justified? In the end, they're all setting up a threshold that they want the R-th best Tharja at minimum, and would cry otherwise. They hear people talk about neutral or +SPD Tharja, and all natures have equal probability anyway, so they're upset when their own Tharja fails to reach that level. I can understand why a bad nature is perceived to be such a big deal, because every nature is of equal probability and so the bad nature was really an unfortunate configuration. But from a practical perspective, you simply rolled a Tharja that's worse than the R-th Tharja. But there's no logical reason for the R-ranked Tharja to be such a critical threshold that anything less than R rank would make one cry while R-ranked and above would be great.

* So if you got a Tharja that didn't meet your expectations, are you willing to keep rolling until you get a better Tharja? A second Tharja would automatically improve the rank due to merge boost, and if the second one has a better nature then that helps even further. So it's always possible to keep improving the rank of your Tharja. And ultimately, that's the path of the one who strives to be a Top Tier Whale. They can keep rolling Orbs, spending tons of money until they get their optimal Tharja. And it's a gacha game, there's no guarantee of how much it would cost. You could be really lucky and get a Tharja or rank R and above within X Orbs, or you might not be able to achieve that. If you really want to go down the road of optimality, you have to prepare for that Gambling Void that could rob you of A LOT of money. If you're willing to go down that path, then welcome to the void and don't complain about it since you knew what you were getting into. But if you're not going down that path, then stop being so strict about optimality.

* On the other hand, if we ignore gameplay performance, then the nature no longer matters. Maybe you really like Tharja as a character. This is no longer about trying to be more optimal. The player would be happy if they rolled Tharja and would cry if they didn't. Although this is an extreme spike in the levels of satisfaction, similar to the nature perception, I would say the spike is justified in this case because it's a binary set of outcomes: either you get Tharja or you don't. In the case of natures, there is a whole spectrum of builds based on gameplay optimality. I'm counting 21 nature configurations from unmerged Tharjas, and then you have way more once merges are also considered. In such a scenario, I would say it's NOT justified to decide on some rank R that incites the binary-like transition of satisfaction (i.e. being really happy with R-rank or higher, and crying for (R + 1)-rank or less).

* But I do acknowledge that a better nature is still... better for gameplay (that's why it's "better"). And that justifies a player being happy about it. What I'm opposed to is the spike in the level of satisfaction between some R-ranked Tharja and the (R + 1)-th Tharja. A more logical perception would be for the satisfaction to reflect proportionally with R. So (assuming I really like Tharja, even though I actually hate her) I would cry if I didn't get Tharja but would be really happy to get ANY Tharja, where a superior nature would make me a bit happier than an inferior nature. But I would still be satisfied with the inferior nature nonetheless. That, I belive, is a more logical perception for a player that does NOT wish to go down the Void of pursuing gameplay optimality.

* This analysis assumes that there is a clear distinct ranking between the different natures, i.e., a "better" nature is objectively superior to a "worse" nature. This is realistically not always true, since every bane is accompanied by a boon. So this strengthens my point slightly, since the distance between the R-th Tharja and the (R + 1)-th Tharja would be smaller.

* Analysis aside, if you look back to the original scenario, where a -Spd Tharja caused you to fail a GHB while a neutral Spd Tharja would allow you to clear it. No other team configuration + strategy (as far as the player is aware) allows for the player to clear the GHB without the neutral Spd Tharja. This is obviously a really upsetting situation. But is it justified to attribute the failure to Tharja's -Spd nature? If the player didn't roll that Tharja at all, they would still fail the GHB. They didn't just fail to roll an "Anything-but-Spd" Tharja, but they also failed to roll (or train) all the other units that could have allowed them to clear the GHB when added to their existing army of trained units. The player was already at a really unfortunate situation to begin with. It wasn't the nature of the Tharja that specifically screwed them over, it was their general bad luck with rolls that led to this failure. But it was the fact that their Tharja was so close to being a unit that could have let them clear the GHB that some players might be quite upset with it, even when compared to the scenario in which they didn't even roll Tharja and would calmly accept that the GHB was too difficult. The possession of Tharja got them so close to the GHB that they only failed it due to her poor nature, and failing despite being so close can be pretty crushing. So I can understand *WHY* they'd feel especially upset that their Tharja is -Spd, but I believe it is illogical, because coming so close is an indication of improved performance compared to the hopeless no-Tharja state, even if both scenarios ultimately failed.

* As unlikely as it is, I do admit that such a scenario is still possible, where a GHB becomes impossible. This is one of the (many) scary aspects of a gacha game; that your rolls are all too poor, or they fail to synergize in order to address the threat of a specific GHB. Players who are intent on committing to FEH or any other gacha game should be fully prepared for this. Otherwise, they may be the victim of such scenarios of soul-crushing depression. Players should be fully aware that they are not *entitled* to possess any Hero (except free ones), and they are left at the mercy of the RNG. In my opinion, one important approach to actualizing this and avoiding the upsetting reactions is to try to be satisfied with everything that you roll, even if a Hero you want has a poor nature, or worse, if you don't even roll the Hero.

* To conclude, I'll reiterate that I do acknowledge that yes, some natures are better than others and the difference can be quite significant even. What troubles me is how many players feel depressed when they roll a Hero with a poor nature, some even going as far as treating them as having little to no value. Whereas they would have been otherwise really happy if their Hero avoided the set of "terrible" natures. This spike in the satisfaction level is what I believe is an exaggeration of the impact of natures, because there's always an alternative that would've been more optimal, and it's not justified to have such vastly different reactions between two sides of such a very specific threshold in this scale of gameplay optimality. Yes, even if this threshold was the difference between clearing and failing a GHB; there are a lot more instances of bad luck (and possibly poor decision-making on who to train) involved that secured the defeat than failing to meet this threshold on the Hero's performance... the Hero's nature actually served to show how close the result was. I understand how such a close failure can be so upsetting, but it's not rational and I continue to insist that such players who react so strongly to rolling Heroes of poor natures are exaggerating, and thus, while I still acknowledge the impact of different natures, I find these differences to be overrated.

* I know I concluded, but I also want to point out that there *is* a hypothetical scenario in which I consider such overreactions to be justified: if free units (GHB/TT/Quest rewards, CYL Free summon, etc) had natures. In that case, all players would be entitled to their Hero reward (provided they fulfill the conditions) and so, it would be somewhat justified to have this spike of satisfaction based on natures.

* A final final note (yeah, I should really stop): Even if you don't agree with my perspective, I do hope you can at least understand where I'm coming from. It really annoys me when people respond to me with "Nature does matter", as if I was implying they're irrelevant. If nothing else, at least do note that I only proclaim that "Natures are overrated" when a player expresses their sadness at a unit's nature, because I don't think it's justified for them to feel so sad and I want to cheer them up.